A threatened Red Legged Frog sits in a marsh area of the Mori Point Park in Pacifica, Calif., on April 24, 2008. Several ponds have been built in the park to provide habitat for the frogs.
Photo by Michael Macor/ San Francisco Chronicle less

A threatened Red Legged Frog sits in a marsh area of the Mori Point Park in Pacifica, Calif., on April 24, 2008. Several ponds have been built in the park to provide habitat for the frogs.
Photo by Michael ... more

Photo: Michael Macor, SFC

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Red-legged frogs get 48-acre preserve in Sierra

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The California red-legged frog, threatened for decades by spreading subdivisions, pesticides and logging, has found a sanctuary in the Sierra Nevada.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife has approved an agreement between two conservation organizations permanently protecting a 48-acre site known as the Big Gun Preserve near Foresthill in Placer County. The wildlife service listed the frogs as threatened in 1966 under the Endangered Species Act.

The land is owned by a unique nonprofit company called Westervelt Ecological Services, the conservation arm of a century-old Alabama lumber company, which buys up properties to preserve wildlife habitats and endangered natural environments.

The Westervelt organization teamed with the Placer Land Trust, a nonprofit in Auburn, to create the special conservation easement in an area that is habitat for the largest population of red-legged frogs in California, said Jessica Pierce, the trust's assistant director.

The site lies next to the Tahoe National Forest and includes several ponds, ponderosa pines, woodlands and chaparral. It was badly degraded during the Gold Rush, Pierce said. Under the agreement, the Placer organization will now protect it with fencing and improve its frog habitat.

The Westervelt ecology organization is a nonprofit spin-off from the privately held Tuscaloosa-based Westervelt Co., which owns more than 500,000 acres of timberland and varied paper products companies. It was founded in 1884, and its company statement says it focuses on "businesses which sustain our natural resources for the future. We are stewards of the land."

Famed as Mark Twain's "Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," red-legged frogs have long faced pressures from expanding human populations in the Sierra. They are also known to be losing their habitats in lowland areas along the Sacramento River and in vanishing open spaces throughout the Bay Area.